


Ghost Lights

by MirrorMystic



Series: Those Who Carry The Flame [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Drama, F/F, Gen, POV First Person, Post-Apocalypse, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Fear takes me. Fear, and anger, and grief, and shame. I don’t notice my power seeping into Miki’s barrier, a curtain of blue and white against the sandstorm’s roiling brown. I don’t notice the aura of white fire enveloping my body, gathering at my shoulders in a semblance of wings.





	Ghost Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from Tumblr; originally written 2/7/17.

~*~  
  
Attention, citizens of Elk Lake. This is an announcement on behalf of the Hunter’s Association.  
  
As a result of power shortages, the city will continue to experience scattered blackouts. We have redirected and consolidated our energy within the central district- the Armory, Conservatory, and Chapel first and foremost. The outermost districts, those closest to the Halo, will not have access to power until this situation is resolved. In addition to this, we have also received reports of heightened ghoul activity in the perimeter districts.  
  
For your safety, we ask that you gather with your friends and neighbors in the central district in order to conserve heat and energy. All citizens with access to wood-burning stoves and fireplaces are asked to make use of them for the duration.  
  
The Hunter’s Association is taking steps to restore power as quickly as possible. We humbly ask for your patience while this matter is resolved.  
  
Stay safe. Stay warm. Stay vigilant.  
  
Attention, citizens of Elk Lake. This is an announcement on behalf of the Hunter’s Association…  
  
~*~

  
_Twenty years ago, war came to my planet. And then, just as suddenly, it left- leaving behind a horde of mindless ghouls in our streets, and a sandstorm that never ends.  
  
My friends and I are the first generation born into this ravaged world- a world where monsters roam the streets and pockets of humanity hold on to what safe zones they can. Somehow, we manage to scrape a living. It’s not an easy life; but it’s not all bad, either.  
  
Twenty years ago, the sky fell in, and monsters descended upon us, but the world did not end. We’re still here, despite everything. We’ve made it this far. And we’ll make it further.  
  
My name is Eliza Beauchene, and this wretched world hasn’t killed us yet.  
  
Today is a new day.  
  
Let’s survive._  
  
~*~  
  
Yasmin’s parents used to say that this town was founded on three things.  
  
In the central district of Elk Lake, there are three key structures. There’s the Conservatory, the massive, glass-walled indoor farm that’s our main source of food production now the sandstorm’s cut off our fields. There’s the Chapel, which hosts service at the three bells, morning, noon, and night. Everyone in town is expected to attend at least one bell service a day. Then, there’s the Armory, a stockpile of weapons for use by Demeter PDF, in a building strong enough and sturdy enough to serve as a fort if need be.  
  
Farming, faith, and firepower- the three pillars of our community. I think there’s a fourth “F”, personally- but that’s not gonna make it onto a plaque at city hall.  
  
The Armory served as both arsenal and barracks for the PDF regiment garrisoned here at Elk Lake. Twenty years ago, during the invasion, Elk Lake just so happened to have the military and its materiel close at hand. Lucky us, I guess.  
  
There came a point, near the tail end of the war, when Demeter Planetary Defense had taken such extensive losses that they were calling for any and all volunteers to rise up and fight.  
  
I don’t know all the details. I was a baby at the time.  
  
But I do know that, at some point, there was a… restructuring of our government. We were cut off from the other cities, thanks to the sandstorm. As far as we knew, Elk Lake was on its own. So the leaders of the community got together- teachers, scientists, engineers, clergy, and a handful of surviving PDF officers- and that’s how the Hunter’s Association was formed, with the Elk Lake Armory as its base of operations.  
  
That’s where I am, right now, in a cramped sitting room uncomfortably like a cell. I’m surrounded by straight-backed soldiers, their hands behind their backs. They’re in uniform, so I know they’re old blood- they might even be veterans of the invasion. And they’re still wearing the old colors- the wheat-gold uniform of Demeter Planetary Defense, worn and faded over time into the murky, muddy color of the sandstorm.  
  
My hands are shaking. I wish Yasmin was holding them. I’d find the sentiment embarrassing if it wasn’t painfully, achingly real.  
  
The door opens and I have to stop myself from jumping out of my seat. The troopers in the four corners of the room stand at attention and snap off salutes. A woman steps into the room and waves them to rest. She takes a seat in front of me.  
  
Commander Satya Singh, founding member of the Elk Lake Hunter’s Association, is sitting three feet in front of me. The edge of her lip curls up into a smile.  
  
“You’re shaking,” she says. “Please don’t. I don’t bite.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“Eliza Beauchene?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“Named after your mother, no doubt.”  
  
I fight it, but I can’t help but cringe. “…Yes, ma’am.”  
  
Commander Singh watches me carefully, pursing her lips in thought. An expression flickers across her face for a moment- sadness, maybe. Maybe even remorse. It’s there for a second, then it’s gone.  
  
“I apologize, Miss Beauchene,” she says, steepling her fingers on the table. “I know your mother is a bit of a… touchy subject. But I have a proposition for you, on behalf of the Hunter’s Association. A task. One that only the daughter of a Saint can do…”  
  
~*~  
  
“They want you to do _what_?” Yasmin balks, indignant.  
  
“They want me to extend the Halo,” I say, slowly, carefully. “They want me to expand it so that it covers the wind farm and the generator station, so that a team of engineers can safely restore power to the city.”  
  
Yasmin, the Shimizus and I are sitting in the Association cafeteria, having breakfast. Yasmin and Mika had come over after bell service was finished. Miki, on the other hand, was already here; I guess the Commander had wanted to speak with him, too.  
  
He’s sitting across from me, pushing over-boiled greens around on his tray. Given the circumstances, food’s one of the last things on our minds.  
  
“Extend the Halo…” Mika whistles. “Can that be done?”  
  
“It’s possible,” Miki murmurs. “In theory.”  
  
“The Professor thinks it’ll work if Miki and I work together,” I continue. “If we’re lucky, maybe we won’t even need to send the second convoy of techs out. Maybe we’ll just flip a switch and boom, the whole city has power again.”  
  
“I don’t believe this,” Yasmin growled. “Sending you beyond the Halo? Who do they think they are?”  
  
“We’re Hunters,” Miki says. “It’s our job.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Mika puts in, frowning. “Patrolling the city, taking down the occasional ghoul, that’s one thing. But out in the sandstorm…”  
  
“Who knows what’s out there? Who knows what’ll happen to you?” Yasmin throws up her hands, irritated. She pushes herself up out of her seat and storms off in a huff. Without a second thought, I’m on my feet, following her.  
  
I catch up to her in the women’s restroom. She’s standing at the sink, angrily washing her hands. She glances up and sees me standing awkwardly in the doorway. She glowers at my reflection. This isn’t the first time she’s done something like this. If we were at home, she’d be angrily washing dishes to blow off steam. In lieu of that, she’s just lathering her hands, over and over, using much more soap than she needs.  
  
“Sending you into the sandstorm,” she mutters. “I ought to give the Commander a piece of my mind.”  
  
“Yasmin, I want to do this.”  
  
“What?” Yasmin stops, just for a second, meeting my eyes in the mirror. A second later she’s lathering again.  
  
“I _want_ to do this,” I echo. “Elk Lake won’t survive without that wind farm. What if the Conservatory loses power, Yas? What if our house doesn’t have any heat? Not everybody still has an old-fashioned fireplace like your folks.”  
  
Yasmin sighs. She rinses her hands and then wipes them dry on her jeans. She looks at me, chewing her lip.  
  
“Why are you so okay with this?” she asks, finally. “After what happened to your dad-”  
  
“That was different,” I say, rather too quickly.  
  
“I don’t-” Yasmin catches herself and sighs, slumping back against the wall. “I don’t want that to be you.”  
  
People don’t talk about my dad as much as they do my mom. My mom died as a war hero, and became venerated as a Saint, in a story painstakingly told three times a day at each bell service. My dad, Jean Beauchene, was the one who stayed. The one who cared.  
  
Until one day, he walked through the Halo and into the sandstorm, and was never seen again.  
  
Yasmin’s worried I’ll be just like my parents. That I’ll die, either in glory, or in grief.  
  
That won’t be me. I swear it.  
  
Yasmin’s leaning against the wall, scowling, stubbornly clinging to anger because she’d rather fume than cry. Her hands are still wet, but I don’t care. I take her hands in mine, and press them to my chest.  
  
“I’ll be fine, Yasmin,” I say, clutching her hands to my chest, pressing my heartbeat into her palms. “I’m here. I’m right here.”  
  
~*~  
  
There is a highway that leads east out of Elk Lake, one that passes beyond the edge of the Halo. There is no actual, physical gate- just the shimmering fire of the Halo, hanging above the road like a theater curtain. My father, Jean Beauchene, used to call this place “la porte de l’enfer”- “The Gates of Hell”. _I_ used to call him overly dramatic.  
  
Now that I’m standing here, I’m not so sure.  
  
By itself, the gate isn’t so intimidating. It’s just like looking out at the sandstorm through floor-length windows. But it’s not just the gate. It’s all the pomp and ceremony. It’s the squad of soldiers in full PDF uniform standing at the ready. It’s the Scarab-class armored truck sitting on the pavement with its hatch open, waiting to swallow us up. It’s Commander Singh and her officers, stony-faced and arms crossed, watching from the curb.  
  
It’s the feeling of us stepping out into the sandstorm and never coming back.  
  
I can’t think like that, though. It’s going to be fine. In and out. Just a milk run.  
  
I’m standing on the street. A bunch of PDF guys are behind me, loading up the Scarab, checking their gear. Goggles, breathers, foul-weather cloaks. Of course. They’re about to walk into a sandstorm. I am, too, though. Do _I_ get goggles? I hope so.  
  
Miki’s in front of me. Yasmin, Mika, and the Professor are on the curb, watching him, alongside the Commander and her officers.  
  
“Just a demonstration, Mr. Shimizu,” Commander Singh is saying, “a simple test, and then we’ll be underway.”  
  
Miki nods. He’s wearing the spellcuffs the Professor made for him. They’re these sleek metal armguards inscribed with arcane formulae. They help focus his magic, supposedly. I just think they look cool, and they’d be nice to break a ghoul’s teeth on if it’s going for a bite.  
  
Miki flexes his fingers, energy crackles at his fingertips. Bluish light snakes its way down the inscriptions on his gauntlets and into the air. He creates, in mid-air, a wall of shimmering blue light, before setting it down on the pavement. It lands on the ground with a satisfyingly dense thud.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he stammers. “Is it okay if I make a cube, instead of a sphere or a dome? It’s easier if I make one wall at a time…”  
  
“Just do it right,” the Professor eases. “Don’t overdo it.”  
  
Miki carefully makes each side of the barrier, finishing with a slab on top, for a roof. I walk up to his makeshift shed of blue light and rap my knuckles on the side. The sound they make is strangely hollow, like tapping on thick glass.  
  
It was then that I realized that all eyes were on me.  
  
“Miki’s power creates a two-way barrier,” I explain, for the benefit of the squad about to escort us into hell. “Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. However, in combination with my power…”  
  
I stretch out my hand, and a chakram of light appears around my fingertips. I trace a sign into the ring, then press my palm against Miki’s shield. A soft white light, like a flame, spreads out across his cube. I try to ignore how much it looks like the Halo above us.  
  
“…I can alter his barrier,” I continue. “So that humans can pass through safely, while still keeping other things out.”  
  
I press my hand against the sanctified barrier, its texture changing from that of glass to gelatin. Passing through feels like passing through a half-frozen waterfall, the curtain of water slushy and thick. I stand inside Miki’s cube, and together, we meet the Commander’s gaze. She nods, curtly. Miki raises his hands and dispels the barrier, the walls dissipating into motes of light, like snowflakes, or fireflies.  
  
“If this is operation is successful,” the Commander says, rising to her feet, “then the generator station east of here will be protected by a Halo of its own. No more unwanted disturbances. No more mysterious losses of power. Once you have secured the site, a second team will follow you. They’ll be the ones to examine the generator and determine if they can restore power. The wind farm and generator station, despite being beyond the Halo, are critical to Elk Lake’s infrastructure. We will not yield them, to the Legion or to the elements, without a fight!”  
  
Commander Singh directs her gaze to my left. A young PDF officer, a sergeant by his pins, stood at attention, a sandy-brown camo-cloak draped across his shoulders.  
  
“Scout Sergeant Keyes,” she says.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” he calls.  
  
“You and your squad will be responsible for escorting Ms. Beauchene and Mr. Shimizu to the generator station. It’s dangerous beyond the Halo. I leave them in your care. Is that understood, Sergeant?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am!”  
  
“Very good,” Commander Singh nods. “Commence the operation!”  
  
The Scarab starts its engines and its lamps flick on, thick floodlamps made for shining through smoke, fog, and snow. The Sergeant turns around and starts ushering his squad inside.  
  
Yasmin comes running, diving into my arms. I hug her tight, press my forehead against hers, and stop just short of kissing her- too many people around, too many who don’t know. I sigh, melting into her, running my fingers through her short, spiky hair.  
  
“I’m gonna be fine,” I coo into her neck.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I’m going to be _fine_.”  
  
“I _know_.”  
  
I don’t think she does. Hell, I don’t know if I do, either. She’s so reluctant to let me go, so convinced that her touch can ground me, solidify me, make me real and whole and alive- as if I’ll vanish into dust the instant she lets me go.  
  
She lets me go, eventually, but her anxiety lingers, clinging to me just as tightly as she did. She’s hugging Miki now, and he’s stiff as a board, rigid with worry. She whispers something to him, and his expression softens, grows heavy. He nods, makes a promise. I look away.  
  
Brother Eli has just arrived. He’s about to give us his blessing. I can’t help but hate him for it. Here he is, granting us benediction, as if this whole operation didn’t feel like a damn suicide mission already.  
  
“A prayer of protection,” he intones, his hand raised over us like the Halo above the city, “and courage, for those who venture out into the dark…”  
  
I don’t hear what he’s saying. I can’t. Not over the Scarab’s trundling engines, or the scraping of the sandstorm against its armored hull, or the sound of my own anxiety scratching at the inside of my skull.  
  
My father, Jean Beauchene, widower of the Saint, called this place the Gates of Hell.  
  
When I was ten years old, he, in his grief, walked out into the sandstorm and never returned.  
  
This is different. I told Yas it was.  
  
But even in this armored truck, even surrounded by trained soldiers…  
  
I can’t shake the feeling I’m doing the same damn thing.  
  
~*~  
  
The Scarab trundles its way down the highway, with the sandstorm beating relentlessly against its armored hull. Through a narrow viewing slit set in the cabin at eye level, I watch the desolation outside. Twenty years ago, Demeter was a lush, verdant agri-world. You’d never guess it now. It’s a shadow of itself now, a ruin- just distant bubbles of civilization, huddling under their Halos, separated by a vast expanse of withered prairie and shifting dunes.  
  
The interior of the Scarab isn’t exactly built for comfort. Miki and I are crammed into this metal tube alongside a dozen PDF troopers, six of us in two rows with facing bench seats. Every time we hit a bump in the road- which was often- the whole cabin would rattle and my knees would knock into Miki’s.  
  
Miki’s pensive, staring down at his holocomm, its backlight casting odd shadows across his face. He notices me watching him and he tilts the screen towards me so I can peek.  
  
He’s using his comm’s GPS to trace our route in real time. “In case we ever need to walk,” he adds, helpfully.  
  
Honestly, it had never occurred to me to use GPS. Routine patrols have drilled the street plan of Elk Lake into my head by now, through rote memorization if nothing else. But this was our first time venturing beyond the Halo. Taking notes was only prudent.  
  
“Are you surprised GPS still works?” He says, chatting just to drown out the anxiety and the Scarab’s snuffling motor. “I was, too. But then, I suppose Seth didn’t bring a fleet.”  
  
He didn’t, come to think of it. Not that it would have mattered, since Demeter didn’t have much by way of orbital defenses. He didn’t bring a fleet, so he didn’t destroy our satellite array, meaning GPS still worked just fine. Instead, he and his ground forces just appeared, in a show of mystical daemon-lord bullshit.  
  
“I’m just surprised you brought your comm,” I say, eventually.  
  
Miki almost smiles. “I can play some music, if you want.”  
  
Between him, Yasmin, and Mika, Miki and I are the least close. But he’s trying, damn it. I feel a little guilty that I can’t do much for him- I’m just as anxious as he is, after all. He misses his sister. I miss my girlfriend. I bet we even miss the Professor, at least a little bit. Now all we can do is focus, buckle down, and get this done.  
  
I scan the stony faces of the PDF troopers around us, every one of them older than Miki and I, even if by only a few years.  
  
I wonder if any of them are as scared as I am, right now.  
  
The trooper on Miki’s left, closest to the rear hatch, is a huge, powerfully built woman who is, I had no doubt, literally capable of snapping me in two. She’s cradling a military-grade flamethrower on her lap. Sitting across from her, to my right, is a wiry, gangly woman, rake-thin and spider-like, all limbs and no curves. She’s taking a catnap, clutching a long rifle to her chest like her favorite plush toy.  
  
The flame-trooper must have caught me staring, since she flashes me a winning smile.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she grins. “So far, so good.”  
  
The sniper next to me stirs and sniffles.  
  
“Oh, yes,” she mutters sleepily, leering at me through a half-lidded eye. “Don’t you worry, kid. Things’ll be _much_ better once we start shooting.”  
  
~*~  
  
They were not.  
  
We took the Scarab as far as we could, and when the road got too treacherous, we continued on foot. We stepped out into the storm, sand scraping and chafing at exposed flesh, the dust wriggling its way into pockets, pouches, even underwear. We stepped into the storm, heads bowed against the howling wind, foul-weather cloaks flapping behind us, our voices stolen by the relentless, screaming gale.  
  
Perfect weather for a wind farm, all considered. Not so much for the rest of us.  
  
The wind farm stretched out around us, each spinning turbine rising up through the smoke like markers on a mass grave. And, in a way, they were- the fields between each turbine were farms, once, but now they were nothing but withered and brown.  
  
There are daemons in the smoke. Everyone in Elk Lake is taught this from an early age. But here, beyond the Halo, it’s frighteningly real. I can feel their eyes on me- thousands of eyes, hungry, staring, blazing with a ghastly red light. I can smell the putrid scent of decay, muffled as it is by the wind and the sand. And I can hear them, running, crunching dead grass underfoot as they charge out of the smoke, hear the sharp, cracking reports of lasfire as they get gunned down.  
  
But I don’t see any of this. I can’t see. Not a damn thing.  
  
I reach up, wiping the grit from my goggles. I had taken maybe two steps out of the Scarab before being immediately grateful the PDF had some to spare.  
  
My foul-weather cloak, also PDF surplus, flapped against my shoulders. Our objective, the generator station, was a vague shadow looming in the distance. We were close. In theory. But head-on into the knifing wind, every step was an effort.  
  
There are three troopers with us. Two of them introduced themselves on the ride over- the friendly, dreadlocked flame-trooper, Shanti, and the wiry sniper, Nora.  
  
The third was an oddity. She was an older woman, with gray in her braid and skin the color of red clay. That wasn’t unusual. But she was the only member of the squad not wearing the wheat-gold uniform of Demeter PDF.  
  
She was stoic and wraith-like in her dark coat and luminous camo-cloak, shifting in color to match the dull brown of the sandstorm around her. She wore two badges. One was of a hunting dog poking its head out of a stand of wheat- the symbol of PDF 1st Company, “The Hounds”. Everyone in this squad had one to match. But the other…  
  
A crescent, an orb, and three diamonds. I knew that symbol. Where had I seen that before?  
  
I suddenly realize that I’m staring. The woman glowers at me.  
  
“Keep it moving,” she says, gruffly, before brushing past.  
  
I flush, embarrassed, feeling guilty. She sounded like a bored chaperone- because she was a bored chaperone. Miki and I were here being babysat while the PDF did all the real work.  
  
I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder. Shanti’s sidled up beside me. She flashes me a thumbs up and a silent question. I nod, meekly.  
  
“That’s Coyote,” Shanti says, shouting over the wind. “She doesn’t talk much.”  
  
“Where did she get that badge?” I ask, but the wind steals my voice away.  
  
We keep on trudging towards the generator station, boots crunching on withered grass, the sandstorm howling around us. The rest of the squad has moved forward, so far ahead that I can’t see them- not that I could see much to begin with.  
  
With every step, I can feel the anxiety tightening in my stomach, rising in the back of my throat.  
  
My foot hits something. I cry out, despite myself.  
  
There’s a corpse in the field, with gray, empty eyes, smoke still rising from a trio of holes in its chest.  
  
Miki’s beside me in an instant. He flashes me a thumbs up, asks me the same silent question Shanti did. I sigh, and immediately feel stupid.  
  
It’s a ghoul. Just a ghoul. I’ve seen them plenty of times before.  
  
Calm down. Calm all the way down. There are daemons in the smoke, but they can be fought. They can be beaten.  
  
The mantra calms me down, just a little bit. Then Nora grabs me by the arm, stopping me in my tracks, and the anxiety all comes rushing back.  
  
Nora raises her hand and pushes her palm towards the ground. Miki and I follow her instructions, crouching in the tall grass. She raises her rifle to her cheek, peering through her scope.  
  
There are three ghouls ahead, their backs to us, crouching over something on the ground. Or so Nora says, because I can’t see anything through the storm.  
  
“Twenty-three meters,” Nora says, smiling with casual confidence. “Like tin cans on a stump.”  
  
Nora fires. It bursts a ghoul’s head like a ripe melon, in an awful, wet burst of gore. A perfect kill shot. Before it even hits the ground, its companions are staring at us, eyes shining with a ghastly red light, flashing like hateful stars.  
  
First they shriek. Then, they charge, trailing inky blackness in their wake.  
  
Nora’s smile vanishes. She charges her next shot, aims, fires. The high-powered bolt superheats the moisture in its target on impact. A ghoul loses an arm and a chunk of its torso in an explosion of steam and gore, spinning from torque. It stumbles, but it keeps coming, its partner in tow.  
  
Miki throws his hand forward. The two ghouls smash into his conjured barrier, their momentum carrying them over Nora’s head and into the grass behind her. They scramble to their feet, hissing, snapping their teeth.  
  
Nora fires again. The ghoul who’s missing an arm now loses a leg- it’s thigh explodes into gore and it falls face-first into the grass. The second one turns its burning red gaze towards me, hisses, makes ready to charge.  
  
I open my hand, forming the spell ring around my fingertips. I trace a sign in the air.  
  
The ghoul stops in its tracks, ablaze in a pillar of smokeless white flame. It claws at its own face, shrieking and screaming, a ghastly keening that fills the air and makes me grind my teeth.  
  
The ghoul’s skull explodes. It jerks aside, comically fast, like a poor actor yanked offstage by a hook. Shanti steps forward, lowering her flamethrower, brushing bits of gore from its grip.  
  
“Sturdy bastards,” Shanti mutters.  
  
“Faster than usual, too,” Nora says, rising to her feet. She nods to Miki and I in quiet gratitude.  
  
The one-armed, one-legged ghoul is still on the ground, feebly dragging itself towards us. Coyote appears beside me, as if conjured out of the smoke. She stalks over to the ghoul, pulling what looks like a tomahawk from a loop on her belt.  
  
There’s a thick, dense chop, and a sliver of black smoke rises up from the ghoul’s split skull. The unearthly red light vanishes from its eyes.  
  
Coyote tosses something to Nora. Nora catches it, opens her hand.  
  
“Townsend,” she says, suddenly looking very old. “Shit.”  
  
She sighs, pocketing the trooper’s dog tags. I try not to think about what was happening to Trooper Townsend when we found him, with three ghouls crouching around his body.  
  
“Let’s keep moving,” Coyote says, the only one to break the somber quiet.  
  
We follow her into the storm, red lights filling the smoke.  
  
~*~  
  
There are daemons in the smoke. Every child in Elk Lake learns this at an early age. But it’s one thing to say that, safe within the veil of the Halo, and quite another to know it, in your heart, in your breath, in your bones.  
  
The generator complex looms above us. Our party seems tiny in comparison, ants on a cliff. There’s something screaming out in the darkness, a wretched banshee wailing. Lesser voices answer its call, a chorus of thousands, shrieking, crouching, chittering, gurgling. We huddle together, the complex’s large walls blocking out the wind, but not the hellish sound.  
  
Scout Sergeant Keyes meets us on the front steps, along with what little remains of his squad. Nora pulls the dog tags from her pocket on their silver chain, handing them to the sergeant.  
  
“We lost Townsend,” Nora says, glumly.  
  
“We lost more than that,” Keyes responds. He’s wearing his goggles, and his camo-cloak is pulled up over his nose and mouth, hiding his face. Even so, I can feel his glare.  “Let’s hope this is worth it.”  
  
I swallow my guilt, joining Miki at the top of the steps. He’s staring up at the generator complex, like a hiker gazing at a cliff face.  
  
“It’s bigger than I imagined,” he says, quietly. He flexes his fingers, his spellcuffs shimmering blue.  
  
“We’re going to be fine,” I say, struggling to believe it. “We’ve got half a dozen trained soldiers watching our backs. We just have to put up one little barrier and then we’re home free.”  
  
“We’d still have to make it back to the Scarab,” Miki says.  
  
I shrug, swallowing. “Let’s get this done.”  
  
Miki takes a deep breath, gathering azure light at his fingertips. Then, he clenches his fists, and begins to pull.  
  
Out of the earth, as if conjured by a stage magician, a great veil of blue light begins to rise like a curtain over the eastern wall of the generator complex. It shimmers, rippling where the sandstorm howls against it.  
  
The screaming doesn’t stop. In fact, it gets louder, the shrieking back-and-forth getting faster and more frenzied. Pinpricks of crimson light gather in the storm, constellations amid a sandblown sky. Shadows move in the smoke. The horrid screeching becomes a pounding, a thunderous charge of hundreds of footsteps, so powerful it makes the earth shake.  
  
The steps explode.  
  
The approach to the generator complex flies apart in a spray of stone and concrete dust. The blast throws me off my feet, knocking the wind out of my chest. I lose sight of the PDF squad in the cloud of dust. Miki, behind me, somehow remains standing.  
  
There is something in the smoke. A shadow, sinuous and strong. It is a woman, or at least, something struggling to be contained in a woman’s shape. Double-jointed legs that ended in cloven hooves. A long, articulate tail ending in a bony growth like the blade of a scythe. Skin the color of ash, studded with bony ridges, like chunks of obsidian jutting out of a beach. Horns. Claws.  
  
Eyes burning crimson, like hateful stars.  
  
She screams- no, roars, and across the distance lesser monsters answer her call. .  
  
The truth of what I’m seeing stops like a stone in my throat. A PDF trooper, a mere shadow in the smoke, manages to do what I can’t, and voices his terror.  
  
“ _Daemon_ ,” he says, in rising panic. “ ** _Daemon!_** ”  
  
She silences his despair with a punch. The superhuman blow pulverizes the trooper’s head and sends his body rocketing into Miki’s barrier, exploding into gore with a sickening wet crunch. Miki gasps at the impact. Above him, the barrier wobbles but still holds steady. Sweat beads on his brow.  
  
The squad opens fire. Lasbolts stream in at the creature from all directions. The shots scorch her flesh and blast chips from her horns and armor plates, but she stands in defiance, turning her head from side to side, as if deciding which of the nuisances is worth punishing first.  
  
I don’t want to just stand here and let everyone else do all the work. So I open my hand, calling forth my Bracelet, the spell ring materializing around my fingertips. I trace a holy symbol in the air.  
  
White fire explodes across the daemon’s shoulders and back. She shrieks in pain, searching for her attacker. Her hellish red eyes lock on me through the gloom.  
  
I instantly regret getting involved. She pounces at me, legs uncoiling with superhuman force. I draw my arms up reflexively, knowing it’ll be useless, expecting to be smashed across the concrete wall behind me. Instead, there’s a thunderous impact and a shriek of frustration, and the sound of claws on glass.  
  
I’m standing inside an extension of Miki’s barrier. We’re cut off, now; Miki and I on one side, the PDF squad and the daemon on the other.  
  
Above us, Miki’s barrier is growing steadily, slowly enveloping the entirety of the generator complex. He’s sweating and panting from the strain. I meet his eyes, helplessly.  
  
“Almost there,” he says.  
  
On the other side of his barrier, fighting for their lives, are the tattered remnants of the PDF squad sent to escort us beyond the Halo. I place my hand on the translucent barrier, pressing my palm against it like it was glass.  
  
I see the daemon, a terror of thrashing limbs and burning eyes. Shanti raises her flamethrower and floods it with fire. Undeterred, the daemon charges anyway, its horns and armor plates glowing like hot coals. She rams into Shanti, smashing her away with a shoulder tackle, sending her sprawling to the ground.  
  
A precise, charged shot explodes against the daemon’s cheek with enough force to make it flinch. It snaps around, roars, and lunges, demolishing the pavement where Nora had been just an instant before leaping away. Coyote circles around, shooting from the hip, her bursts doing little more than simply drawing the daemon’s attention. The daemon swipes at her, claws flashing like obsidian knives. Coyote chops her tomahawk into the daemon’s wrist and she shrieks, smacking Coyote away with the back of her hand.  
  
Keyes is behind the daemon, along with another of his troopers. They switch to full-auto, hosing fire into the daemon, the hail of lasbolts scoring chips and gouges into the daemon’s armor, each scorched, smouldering blast left glowing white-hot. Then, in a move as graceful as it was filled with contempt, the two of them were swatted away. Keyes was smashed aside by a spinning kick from cloven hooves, and the whip-like tail followed close behind, slicing the other trooper in two.  
  
The trooper’s bisected torso landed with a squelch on the shattered steps in front of me, spattering Miki’s barrier with gore. I flinched, ripping my gaze away from the trooper’s piteous body, wondering what his name was, hating that I didn’t know, or didn’t bother to remember.  
  
I press my hand against Miki’s barrier, balling it into a fist. Guilt spears into my chest.  
  
This man died for me. The others, too- these brave men and women gave their lives for me. Because of who I was. Who they thought I was.  
  
They walked into hell with me. And they were damned for it.  
  
The daemon howls, its wretched voice thundering across the plains, and part of me, some sick, morbid, part of me, knows that it’s calling for its brethren to feed. I can see them, red lights in the smoke, stepping forward, becoming shapes, shadows. I can feel the horde of ghouls creeping nearer, eager for meat, but knowing that their master had the right of first pick.  
  
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want to lead a squad of soldiers to their deaths. I didn’t want to sit here and cower behind a barrier while better, braver people fought, and died, for me. I just wanted to do something useful. I just wanted…  
  
…to be a hero.  
  
Fear takes me. Fear, and anger, and grief, and shame. I don’t notice my power seeping into Miki’s barrier, a curtain of blue and white against the sandstorm’s roiling brown. I don’t notice the aura of white fire enveloping my body, gathering at my shoulders in a semblance of wings.  
  
All I notice is the cacophony of selfish thoughts echoing in my head. I wanted to do something useful for the town. I wanted to make sure we’d have electricity. I wanted to make sure we’d have food. I wanted to show everyone that the sandstorm wasn’t unstoppable.  
  
I wanted to walk into the sandstorm. Not because Commander Singh told me to, or because the Professor told me to, or because the town was depending on me.  
  
I wanted to walk into the sandstorm that ravaged my planet- the one that took my mother, my father, my friends and neighbors, and, hell, when I was thirteen, almost took me- I wanted to walk into that howling abyss, lift up my soul like a torch, and scream:  
  
_I’m still here! **I survived**!_  
  
With that thought echoing in my mind, a pillar of light explodes upwards, out from Miki’s barrier and up into the clouds. The barrier pulses and throbs, surging with energy from within. White light cascades outwards in a thunderous wave, blasting away soot-brown clouds, forcibly parting the sandstorm. For the first time in years, I can see the stars.  
  
Thousands of ghouls, for miles around, are immolated in white fire. They burn for a split-second before being annihilated, swept away by the tsunami of energy unleashed at the generator complex for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain.  
  
The daemon stood her ground against the explosion of light, screwing her eyes shut against the gale. A cloud of inky blackness rose from her mouth and nostrils and dissipated into the wind. The hateful red glow left her eyes. She swayed, exhausted, falling to the ground and gazing up in wonder at the pillar piercing the clouds. Her eyes, bereft of the toxic red light, were soft and sad, like stones from a riverbed, polished by the current.  
  
The pillar of light, stretching to heaven, lingered in the air before slowly fading away. In the end, there was indeed a barrier over the generator complex, one not unlike Saint Elizabeth’s Halo. But more than that, for a short time, there was a break in the sandstorm. For the first time in twenty years, Demeter’s air was clear, and the stars could come out.  
  
All eyes are on me in the wake of my miracle- and even calling it as such puts a knot in my throat. I come down the steps, gingerly, feeling lightheaded, feeling a lot of things.  
  
“That was amazing!” Keyes is saying, though his voice sounds miles away. “Truly, you are the daughter of the Saint!”  
  
I barely hear him. I clutch at my heart, pounding, in my ears, in my chest…  
  
I vaguely feel someone patting me on the back. I’m staring at the ground, the world spinning.  
  
“Stop it! Leave her alone!” Miki snaps, as loud as I’ve ever heard him. “Eliza? Eliza!”  
  
I lay down on the ground. Or maybe I fall. I don’t remember. But I lay on my back, gazing up at the stars, beside the strange woman with horns and a tail and eyes that are deep and cold.  
  
There are daemons in the smoke. But here, just for a moment, the air was clear.  
  
With the stars shining overhead, and that thought foremost in my mind, I open my arms, and my world goes white.  
  
~*~


End file.
